The Universalist. [volume] (Chicago [Ill.]) 1884-1897, 1887-08-06

contained SO much that he was hungry to
know, and nothing makes knowledge
taste so good as being hungry for it. He
had often watched the sky and the stars,
and the plants and trees, as he lay on his
lonely couch, and had wanted to know
more about them; and now that he could
understand something about the causes
OF rain and wind and storm, he found a
new pleasure in work that interested
him very much. This work was taking
meteorological observations, n. e, con-
corning the weather,) and sending them
to the nearest paper. And very happy
he was when these were published, for
now he felt no longer that he was poor,
useless cripple, but could see that he was
doing some good in the world, by adding
even little to the sum of human knowl-
edge. Now, too, he delighted more than
ever in studying the flowers that grew in
the cottage-garden, and about the fields,
for he could study and understand their
structure, and the uses of their different
parts; and then he began to examine into
the wonderful mysteries of colors and
sounds, and always found more and more
to delight and lead him on.
During his illness, and the long years
of helplessness that followed, his young
friends often came to visit him, and there
was no one he liked better to see and
talk to than Lille, the little girl he had
rescued from the stream at such cost to
himself. As the years passed on, she
was growing up into pretty, soft-eyed
maiden, and Xavier, who was now youth
of eighteen or nineteen, began to find her
visits pleasanter, and her society sweeter
than ever, and thought OF her more and
more constantly. Lille liked to come and
see him, too, and they had many pleas
ant talks together as they sat in the little
hower-garden in front OF the cottage, and
watched the sun go down behind the
mountains that raised their pine-crested
shoulders above the valley. But these
pleasant talks came to an end too soon.
Lilies parents wished to see her well
married to some prosperous young farm
er who could support a wife in comfort,
and were afraid lest she should waste her
affection on this poor helpless invalid, so
they by and by forbade her to meet him
any more. Lille naturally felt grieved at
deserving her old playmate, but she con-
soled herself, by and by, with the lover
her parents wished for. But poor Xavier
could not console himself. He had learn
ed to love Lille very much, and for a
time it seemed to him that the loss of her
society had left his life more desolate
than ever. But then he reflected that it
was unworthy of man and a Christian
to repine SO bitterly because he could
sessed, and SO he went back to his studies,
and to his loving watching of Nature,
and simply tried to make the best of his
life as Gods will had laid it out for him.
As he continued quite unable to walk
step, the friends who had learned to re-
spect his brave determination to learn all
that was possible, got for him q little
donkey-cart in which he could ride as
much as he pleased, and explore the nat
ural history of the valley. So, day by
day, in his modest little equipage, the
cripple-naturalist would take one of the
mountain paths. or would wend his way
along the valley, stopping wherever he
saw plant or stone that was still I'M
familiar to him. In this way, he varied
the monotony of his life, earning his
bread by light manual work, which he
had learned, and filling up the hours OF
| leisure with scientific observations and
written meditations on the things he OBJ
served. After while the idea came into
his mind that he would write the natural
history of the valley he lived in; and
though he had no composition-master, he
wrote very interesting little history,
telling in pleasant, simple manner, just
the things he had seen Bnd studied for
himself. So much was this little book
valued by the scientific people who read
it, that it excited great interest in the
writer. Many lovers of nature and sci
ence came to see and talk with him, and
by and by he received an appointment to
the post of Grifeur, or Secretary to So
ciety for the Advancement OF Science.
And SO, far from being unhappy, or even
in the least discontinued with his lot, our
cripple-naturalist had so far conquered
his misfortunes and lost self in noble
enthusiasm, that he was able to write
such happy thoughts as the following,
when, as young man of twenty-five, he
! had before him no prospect but that of a
cripple's life:
"For me, I have never sought out the
joys of my life. They have come, so to
speak, to find me. They have grown and
lowered under my feet like the field dali
sizes, though have not always perceived
them at first sight. Often, indeed, have
overlooked them; it was not always al
lowed me to see clearly through my tears
/ have known them in the long journeys
that have made since my childhood;
have known them in my walks, along the
hedges, fields and pastures of the hill
above my home; in observing the flowers,
the moses, the birds; in those poetical
reveries, or rather ravishments, in which
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